Iva’s personal site - Squirrelism.net

Following comments to Mira’s most recent post, I came across Simon Owens’ huge rant, I thought I’d just finish Simon’s list (or at least extend it, in case someone else would like to finish it.

So, here are my additions to Simon’s 10-piece-list.

11.The front page of MySpace appears as an “Unknown error” 2-3 times a day.

12. They list “pagan”, “wiccan” and other similar stuff as religions, while if you happen to be an Orthodox Christian, which is one of the largest divisions of Christianity, you have to select “Christian-Other”. Come on.

13. They replied me to say that they’re sorry, but they can’t change “Yugoslavia” to “Serbia and Montenegro”. Then, when Serbia and Montenegro split, they didn’t respond to one single petition about us having rights to pick the countries we actually live in. My current location reads Beograd, Serbia, definitely not, Micronesia, Federate States Of. I didn’t want to put Yugoslavia and either way, that country was just a pale reminder of the huge happy one I was born in.

14. No RSS on blogs. No way to export or import shit in the civilised, real Web 2.0. way. So, when I post a blog here, I usually have to write a bulletin on MySpace, while my Facebook and LiveJournal have RSS and my friends on those sites know that I’d updated squirrelism.

15. No way to go to blog’s homepage when reading a blog entry. And that is downright stupid.

16. No limit in adding STUPID SHIT to one’s profile. Yes, seriously, I arrived to your profile to watch twenty-four YouTube videos.

17. The lame and shitty top friends concept. Whose idea was it to rank friends, anyway? I’m keeping my favourite musician as my number one, a work profile as number two and I added a couple of charities and nonsense links there as well, as I don’t want to rank my friends. A friend who’s totally obsessed with MySpace told me that he’d add me back to his top friends now that we’re talking again. I mean, WHAT? Do you really think I care if I’m your top friend or not? It sure is slightly flattering to me, but how are your other friends feeling?

18. Did I mention bulletins? At the very beginning, I did not understand what were those for, but now it seems that some people are using them for various exhibitionist purposes. Some of the suggestive responses I’ve seen in people’s surveys scare me. But surveys will need their own topic, as some of the repeating questions are just…marvellous.

19. The ego-factor. One of my closest friends has become a less close friend when MySpace became an important thing in her life. She was actually resisting to make an account there and then she realised what exciting work opportunities it might bring to her (she works in, let’s say, public relations). Now she’s responding with Haven’t you seen my calendar on MySpace? I was at [insert place here] for [insert the reason here]! when I ask I have not seen you in a while. Where have you been? Are you OK? Love you. Whenever I am ranting about her at home, I tell my parents that MySpace took her away from me.

20. Horrible spelling is spreading as the freakin’ flu. I don’t remember seeing misspellings such as actaully, mascarea, exems and such before. Now I almost tend to believe that people see misspelled words and think it’s the right way to write or, even worse, the cooler way?

That’s all I could think of right now. I will need one more entry to cover the phenomenon MySpace apparently is here in Serbia, but I don’t know if it’ll be interesting to people who don’t live here.

Also, I might write an entry to cover the (minor) good sides of MySpace.

OK, time for a super-boring post, a look back at 2007 for the first and last time, as even such an odd year deserves it. It was weird, from the very beginning. So, I’m glad it’s over, both according to the Gregorian and Julian calendar now. Bye-bye, so long, won’t miss you, FU.

The highlight of 2007 would probably be work and money, which is remarkably sad, but so good at the same time, as money might not buy someone happiness, but it sure makes people munch on ego waffles a bit more. Actually, that’s the only thing that matters there, the proof of achievement, just like when you’re winning awards in school.

The other highlight would be a delayed text message from one of my closest friends waking me up at the start of the second half of the year. My reaction to it was very similar to this webpage. That’s how good it was, yes. And whatever it was, it completely changes my negative outlook to life and its mysteries. Also, it made me think about my intuition, a part of me the existance of which I’d never wanted to admit before. Apparently, 2007 found me in a director’s chair, writing a rather strange script and then looking at it all actually happen, astonished, puzzled and, in many ways, confused. I learnt that I can predict things even through nonsense poems I was writing when I was fifteen. And I’m not talking only about the thing in the text message, I’m talking about a bunch of other things, but they all revolve around the same subject. I guess I should look for a parapsychologist to explain me what on Earth am I about, as I don’t know it myself.

Oooh, yes, Invisible Movement hits 500 000 in 2007. 400 000 and 600 000 as well, but those numbers are not as sexy as 500 000. Milestones are cool, aren’t they?

Other cool things would be one more trip to Gyula; RHCP at Green Fest (duh!), also seeing Rolling Stones, Muse and Buena Vista Social club live, being a spectator at the benefit where Ana Ivanović, Novak Đoković, Jelena Janković and Janko Tipsarević were gathering money for children and…so on.

Either way, because Mira will love it and because it’s kinda fitting in this particular moment:

Saw things
Clearer
Once you, were in my…
Rearviewmirror…

Now I can officially enjoy 2008, unless I should wait for the Chinese New Year to pass as well?

Since my website comes in all those amazingly porn-related searches that I mentioned a few weeks ago, I thought I’d give the audience what they demand, so here is some vegetable porn….paprika-porn, to be precise This thing popped up from a paprika at the breakfast the other day and my dad and I wanted to show it to everyone because we’re easily amused, but my mom put it in a stew.

Some amazing paprika-porn: right here, right now, only on squirrelism.net!

In the end, she was the one who came across it at the dinner table and she was screaming at dad to get it out of her plate, because she didn’t want to eat paprika testicles and a paprika penis. There you go, all the porn lovers who come to this site must be delighted now.

Don’t you just LOVE nature?

There’s a certain vibe in the air. Happy New Year to you and happy err… fourth anniversary to me, I guess I’ve graduated from whateverthismay be after four years? Am I a bachelor or a master now?:)

In 2008 I resolve to freakin’ update this thing more often, like I used to. 2007 and the most of the 2006 have killed it a bit and I know I can do better than that. I sure do.

Two boring days are ahead of me and it’s the same every year. People laugh when I say that 24th and 25th December are the days made-in-heaven when it comes to maintenance on this site, Invisible Movement and the Serbian Lush site. And seriously, that’s what I’m going to be occupied with the next two days, apart from remembering to wish my friends a merry Christmas.

I doubt I’d ever explained this on this domain, so here I go again: please, do not wish me a merry Christmas. I’m Serbian. Serbia is a Christian country (though I’d state this because someone asked me if “I’m not dating because Muslim rules don’t allow that”), but our church is going with Greek old calendarists, Jerusalem Orthodox church, Russian, Ukrainian and Georgian Orthodox churches, as well as some noncanonised churches such as Montenegrin and Macedonian. In terms of religion, we never accepted the Gregorian calendar, according to which Christmas is celebrated on 25th December. And we might not accept it in future either, as we’re sticking with those “big names”.

According to Julian calendar, the name of which obviously comes from Julius Caesar, has been abandoned in all countries of the world in terms of real-life, but is still used in the above mentioned churches. The other Orthodox churches are using a Revised Julian calendar, the solar part of which is indentical to the one of Gregorian calendar. Ironically, although it was a Serbian scientist, Milutin Milanković, who proposed it; the Revised Julian calendar was rejected by Serbian Orthodox Church.

So, if you really want to wish me a merry Christmas, come back on 07th January 2008, because that’s when we’re celebrating it. As for Easter…that’s a whole new story.